I’m a BIG Fan of Science and Evidence Based Practices.
I tend not to hold much broscience in very high regard…
Check out Broscience Life on The YouTube, it’s amazing
That is, unless that broscience is time-honored, tested and approved.
By Bros’ people who have gotten really good results from it, consistently.
BroScience:
Broscience is the predominant brand of reasoning in bodybuilding circles where the anecdotal reports of jacked dudes are considered more credible than scientific research.- urban dictionary
Here’s the thing:
A lot of what science says today will be different in 20 years.
And that’s a good thing.
It means that curious interested people are constantly looking for the best ways to get sh@t done.
But a lot of times in this, human performance bizzness we get stuff wrong.
Or we look at the wrong thing to measure “improvement” or lack there of and the “right”, evidence based way changes over time.
And a lot of time the Broscience ends up being right.
Sometimes for the wrong reasons, but in the end, it works…
How does this happen?
Labcoats:
Unfortunately (and this isn’t always the case) the research done is crappola on a stick for a number of reasons:
#1: Too Often They don’t do this Stuff.
Fortunately, this does seem to be changing..but
I’ve been to too many conferences and listened to a labcoat talk about doing X,Y,Z and it sounded good on paper, but was idiocy in practice.
Fact is it’s hard to listen to a guys who’s 6 foot plus and 140lbs soaking wet telling you what you should do to add mass or strength to your athletes.
First thought:
probably not…
If you’ve never been under a bar it’s really easy to go,
“fundamentally the leg press and squat are very similar exercises” <—-I actually heard that once from a noted researcher
Ummm, For Realzzz?
And you know that they’re not if you’ve done them.
A lot of these guys just aren’t that into lifting, and that’s cool, but they’re doing research on lifting, which is fine too and doesn’t in and of itself negate the research.
The problem is that they don’t account for something very, very important (that they would understand had they been a long time lifter……
#2: Convenient Grouping/ Subjects
Lets face it Olympic hopefuls are not getting offered up to do studies.
What if you’re athlete is in the group that gets the negative training response?
Mr. Olympia hopefuls aren’t “trying” new steroid regimes protocols for the sake of science.
NFL teams are not lining up their teams and going, “Half are going to get the sh@t that works (maybe) and the other half, not so much”
So your left with students, gym bros and people who want to make $20 over 8 weeks.
So how good are your results going to be?
About as good as a few dozen hungover gym bros can produce…..
It’s not uncommon for a study on lower body strength over 12 weeks to show massive increases in strength, sometimes 30-60% improvement.
It’s usually not cause the protocol was that awesome.
It’s cause all the subjects sucked.
They couldn’t lift sh@t at first, of course they got a hella lot stronger….
Beginner gainzzz bro….
#3 or 2b: People Suck
It’s not an uncommon thing for people to sign up, start and vanish from a study.
People are always dropping out, not following through and
DESTROYING YOUR RESULTS.
Especially if the intervention is harder than writing your name on a piece of paper….and god forbid they aren’t getting paid for the study, you ain’t seeing them again.
#4: The Money is in Sickness, not Health
NIH doesn’t give two damns about the hypertrophy of the gluteus maximus after 12 weeks of a periodized deadlift program.
They could give 2 sh@ts about the improvements in vertical jump after 6 weeks of plyometric training.
They really give a sh@t about things like, how to improve exercise tolerance in those with COPD, or the gene alterations that occur in the obese after 20 weeks of exercise training.
That’s just more important really…..it just is.
I wish we had better sports science, but on the whole, we don’t…
So those of us in the Iron Game need to rely on a little Broscience from time to time.
The measure sometimes should simply be:
Research would tell you using preexhaust methods don’t work (at least when it comes to increased muscle activation).
But anyone who’s done this whole lifting weights thing will tell you that preexhaust works the muscle harder and creates more damage.
Image from EliteFTS.com <—best training site on the web, buy stuff from them, I do.
The guy in the picture?
That’s John Meadows….he believes in preexhaust and it obviously does not work well for him.
For years the labcoats said that you couldn’t specifically “work” one part of a muscle, it was Brioscience
But umm, how come my upper pecs are more sore after I do incline presses?
See the big problem in exercise research science is that it’s almost always after the fact.
After the Results.
The studies are conducted because some gym bros were doing something and getting good outcomes so a researcher looked into it.
The studies often only serve the purpose of telling us that the meatheads were right. Show the latest study that proves that multiple sets are better than single sets for hypertrophy to an experienced lifter or coach and he’ll nod his head and say, “Interesting. Thanks.” If he’s a smartass he’ll say, “No fucking shit.”- Chris Shugart
“Balance Training”:
gym bros said it was bullshit, the labcoats concurred later.
Lighter loads taken to failure can build muscle:
A long time ago bodybuilders said lift as light as possible and concentrate on the movement.
“Make a 70lbs dumbbell feel like a 100lbs.”- Stole it from someone, don’t know who.
Labcoats investigated and, low and behold, the Bro’s were right.
Fact is, if you find the most jacked guy in the gym and ask him the Three Primary Mechanisms of Muscle Hypertrophy.
He will tell to get the F-out of the way you pencil neck geek not have an answer, short of:
- Squat
- Bench
- Dead
Now, don’t get me wrong IFLS (I f-ing Love Science) and think that we as an industry NEED to embrace evidence based best practices, ask questions and find real answers.
But I’ve also been at this for a minute now and have seen things, ideas, rules, and fads come and go.
Here’s the cold hard truth.
If you want to get really good results and have no other option this works most of the time, go into the gym and do this:
About Roy:
